Global Tech Records Over 1.63 Lakh Layoffs This Year

In Asia and the Middle East, workforce reductions have been spread across key innovation centres, with Israel recording the highest number of layoffs in the enterprise software segment, followed by India and Singapore. The cuts span sectors including AI startups, e-commerce platforms and cybersecurity firms. Israel ranked second after the United States, with 660 enterprise software layoffs across two companies.

On July 22, Israeli workplace software maker Monday.com announced plans to cut around 20 per cent of its global workforce, or roughly 620 employees, as it restructured around its AI Work Platform.

No company has reduced its workforce more aggressively in 2026 than Oracle, which has cut 25,254 roles across multiple rounds since January. While the company had already begun trimming staff toward the end of 2025, the scale of layoffs escalated sharply in March, when thousands of employees across the United States, India, Canada and Mexico were dismissed.

Canada’s information management software company OpenText announced in July that it had cut around 2 per cent of its global workforce, or roughly 400 employees, as part of ongoing organisational planning. The company said the impact on its Canadian workforce was minimal.

Cisco has said that roughly $1 billion in restructuring costs from its cuts would go toward its AI strategy. Monday.com framed its reduction as a shift around its AI Work Platform. ServiceNow’s cuts coincided with a separate milestone: its AI portfolio crossing $1 billion in annual contract value.

Investors responded positively in several cases. Cisco’s shares jumped 17 per cent in after-hours trading, Monday.com’s rose 2.3 per cent, and ServiceNow’s climbed roughly 9 per cent over the following week.

Stanislava Savisheva, analyst at TradingPlatforms, said the layoffs were widely linked to AI strategies. “The message from markets is increasingly clear: massive waves of layoffs are now seen as a sign of discipline, as long as the story is some kind of pivot toward AI. Fewer employees, framed the right way, now reads as a stronger business, with its priorities straight,” she said.

The data underline a year in which large-scale workforce reductions in technology have frequently been presented as part of a shift toward AI-led products and operations, even as overall job losses across the sector have mounted.